


Glad for the Stitches

by Sans_Virtuosity



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: -Ish, Canon Compliant, Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Not Beta Read, it's Lonashipping if you squint okay, just a cute little one-shot while I work on finishing up the longfics, lonashipping, lunaredgeshipping, mahinashipping, not self-harm though if that helps, tw for scarring, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 11:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12910821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sans_Virtuosity/pseuds/Sans_Virtuosity
Summary: Things are hectic after the assault on Aether Paradise. Lillie is safe, Nebby is hurt, Lusamine is gone, and no one knows how they should proceed.But in the chaos, Moon finds Gladion deep within the Aether Conservatory, and the two share a rare moment of understanding.There's always time to stitch up the tears later; sometimes it's better to let the scars show.A fic about confidence, and helping one another.





	Glad for the Stitches

**Author's Note:**

> “In a perverse way, I was glad for the stitches, glad it would show, that there would be scars. What was the point in just being hurt on the inside? It should bloody well show.”  
> \- Janet Fitch

* * *

 

Two days after what Moon and Hau jokingly referred to as ‘The Assault on Aether Paradise’, Moon still found herself hanging around the artificial island, gathering her thoughts and contemplating her next move.

Lillie was safe. Moon, Gladion, and Hau stormed the Paradise after she had been kidnapped from the Aether House on Ula’ula, righteous fury in their hearts. But they hadn’t gotten there soon enough to save Nebby. Lusamine forced the Pokemon to tear open a wormhole against its will, and it sent Nebby into a catatonic state, its form changing into something resembling a chrysalis. An in-between state.

Lillie and Gladion had since taken over the Paradise, and sent for researchers to look at Nebby and figure out what was happening. While they were waiting for answers, they searched for alternative methods to open a wormhole themselves and chase after Lusamine. There were very few leads, with the most promising being little more than ancient island legend, but they were confident that they could find a way to bring Lusamine back and stabilize Nebby.

They just had to take it one day at a time.

In order to clear her head, Moon made her way to the conservatory. It was her favorite place on the Paradise. The enforced peace of the carefully-managed micro-ecosystem seemed to affect her as well, allowing her to let go of any outside stressors and simply enjoy nature for what it was. All the same, she avoided the spot where she’d had her first encounter with an Ultra Beast. It was better not to tempt fate and disrupt the calm with bad memories.

As Moon walked the trails through the conservatory and mentally ran over the Legend of the Flutes again, she couldn’t help but notice that there were a lot of areas off of the trails that Aether could improve. Seating was scarce, and the lack of any proper observation decks within the artificial forest left Moon feeling like she was unduly disrupting the Pokemon who lived there.

Moon went off the trail nonetheless, and wove her way through the sweet-smelling trees with Decidueye following close behind. The rest of her Pokemon were already off in other parts of the conservatory, along with Hau’s team. It was a well-deserved vacation for all of them after the stress of Lillie’s kidnapping.

Through a break in the trees, Moon could just make out a clearing that held one of the rare seating areas. Almost every seating area she’d run into so far was just a cluster of backless cement benches arranged in a circle around a fountain, and Moon was sure this one would be the same. She pushed through the brush and into the clearing, and found that while she was correct on almost every assumption, this area also contained something unexpected.

Gladion sat alone on one of the stone benches, with his back to her.

He hadn’t heard her come through.

He wasn’t wearing his jacket, and Moon noted how much smaller he looked without it. She couldn’t help but think of the way a Masquerain used the patterns on its wings to scare off predators. He wasn’t so different. The thought made Moon’s heart ache. She saw the way Lusamine casually dismissed him and Lillie. She knew exactly where he was coming from now, where all his hurt and anger originated, and it felt wrong to have that advantage over him. He looked especially vulnerable out of his jacket and just in a plain t-shirt, and the last thing Moon wanted was for him to catch her staring.

She motioned behind her at Decidueye to head back through the trees, not breaking eye contact with Gladion, and then took a few steps backward. But Decidueye either hadn’t caught her signal, or had ignored it entirely, because she ended up backing directly into her Pokemon, and in a flurry of movement he panicked and sent the bushes rustling with a flap of his wings.

Gladion turned around to look at her, and Moon reluctantly accepted that her attempt at stealth failed miserably. She sighed, and raised a hand in greeting. To her surprise, he waved her over. She turned around, half expecting to see someone else behind her. But it was just Decidueye, giving her a narrow-eyed look for startling him.

Moon cleared her throat and walked over to Gladion, confidence bolstered by the knowledge that Pokemon battles in the conservatory were expressly forbidden. But she knew in her heart of hearts that whatever he wanted couldn’t be good.

When he came into full view, she saw that he had his jacket in his lap, turned completely inside-out, and he was currently finishing up a row of stitching. He didn’t even look up at her again after he waved her over. He was focused on his hands, and mending the relatively smallish tear that ran close to, but not along, the seam that ran down the side of the jacket. He paused his stitching to gesture for her to join him on the bench beside him.

Moon watched as Decidueye jumped up to the edge of the fountain and leaned in to take a drink, before she did as Gladion asked and sat down next to him.

His stitches were clumsy, but he did them quickly. Moon found it incredibly interesting to watch. What was more interesting to her, though, was Gladion’s bare arms.

She’d never seen them before, and probably for good reason.

There were scars, thin and pale, that crossed over his arms in various places. They were few, but they could be found all the way up the length of his arms, indiscriminately.

_These weren’t self-inflicted_ , Moon realized with relief.

Most of them looked like they were just minor wounds that weren’t treated soon enough to avoid scarring. But there was one thick, rough-looking pink scar that stood out, and it ran all the way from his elbow up into the sleeve of his shirt. Moon couldn’t guess how high up it went, and she didn’t care to find out. It must have been a very nasty wound. A scar like that wasn’t without a story, and Moon held no illusions that she and Gladion were close enough for her to bring it up.

Moon wondered if Lillie knew.

Gladion caught her staring from the corner of his eye just as he finished up his last stitch. He made a show of tearing the extra string off with his bare hands, and then turned to her. He gathered up his jacket in his hands and turned it about until he found another tear. It almost went the entire circumference of one of his sleeves, threatening to take the whole arm of the jacket off of he didn’t take care of it soon. He considered the tear for a moment before pinching the ends of the fabric together and holding it out to Moon.

“Hold on to this so it stays even.”

Those were the first words he’d spoken to her since she found him. Did he call her over just so she could help him mend his jacket? Something about the absurdity of the situation made Moon laugh, and Gladion shot her a glare.

She swung her leg over the bench so that she was facing him directly and motioned for him to do the same. With great reluctance and not less than two dramatic, heaving sighs, Gladion adopted the same pose. He placed the jacket in-between them and held out the sleeve to her again. Moon took it carefully, making sure the fabric held the same position while Gladion adjusted the thread in his needle to give him more to work with. It didn’t look like he had enough string to finish the length of the tear.

Gladion noticed her concerned look, and said, “I don’t need to fix the whole thing right now. Just enough so that it won’t completely come off. I’ll finish it some other time. And I just need you to hold it while I start it. After that, you can leave if you want.”

Moon nodded and scooted closer to him so they could reach each other in the middle without trouble. They were close enough that their knees were touching, and in some cruel, ironic twist of fate, it left Moon feeling profoundly open and vulnerable. He leaned over, found the side he wanted to start on, and wrapped his whole hand over her thumb and forefinger, holding her steady while he poked the needle through the fabric to begin his first stitch.

Moon exhaled a shaky breath and tried not to look directly at the boy in front of her. He was being uncharacteristically calm, and she had no idea what could set him off and turn him into the Gladion she was accustomed to.

“Why are you doing this out in the conservatory, anyways?” Moon asked under her breath.

She’d meant for that to stay safely within her thoughts, but when the corner of Gladion’s lip upturned in a slight smirk, she realized her mistake.

Gladion said nothing, his concentration now almost entirely on his sewing, but gestured with his head towards the woods.

Moon followed the movement and saw, far off in the distance, she could just barely make out Gladion’s Type:Null raking his claws down a tree, like a Meowth would a scratching post. It startled a laugh out of her, and Gladion’s smirk widened into what would be called a hesitant smile on anyone else.

“I bet the Aether employees are getting a kick out of that,” Moon said, trying to play off of Gladion’s sudden show of positive emotion.

“He’s already taken the bark off of two other trees,” Gladion stated matter-of-factly, as though that wasn’t incredibly impressive considering how thick the trees were. “It’s better that he gets this out of his system while he’s here. Otherwise…”

He trailed off, refocusing on his hands, and his stitching. Moon tried to let it go, but she thought back to the scars that covered his arms, and she had to ask. The curiosity was just too much for her to bear.

“Otherwise,” she nodded towards his arms, “that happens?”

He froze, and guiltily looked away from her and turned his gaze towards Null. His hand stayed firmly on Moon’s.

“It’s not his fault. He doesn’t understand his own strength most of the time. But he’s getting better. This one,” he vaguely gestured with his elbow, with the arm that bore the worst scar of them all, “I got the very first time I sent him out to battle. He panicked, and I was in the way.”

“It looks bad.” Moon pointed out, not really knowing what to say.

“It was. I was told I’m not supposed to carry anything over forty pounds. Ever.” He rolled his eyes and chuckled in a self-deprecating sort of way that made Moon’s chest grow tight. “But it’s alright. I’d take a dozen more scars if it meant I’d still have Null as a partner.”

He shook his head to clear his thoughts and turned his faraway gaze back to his sewing. He was running out of string, and his movements were even less precise than before.

“I didn’t mean to make you listen to my sad backstory.” He said, quickly glancing up at her from beneath his lashes, “Or make you help me with my jacket. Or…” he swallowed thickly and released Moon’s hand. She let him take the jacket from her, and he finished off the last of his string on his own. When he finally continued, he kept his gaze firmly on the needle in his hand. “I didn’t mean to drag you into my family drama. Lillie was my responsibility, and I messed up. Lusamine was my responsibility, too. I should’ve done something sooner, on my own.”

“You couldn’t have known. Besides, I’m actually really glad I’m able to help; I honestly care about what happens to Lillie. And-” _And you_ , she wanted to say, _despite your attempts to fight me at every turn_. Instead, she settled with, “And well, if you’re so uncomfortable with the thought of me helping you, just pretend I’m doing it all for Lillie.”

Gladion said nothing at that. He just got up and stepped over the bench before turning his jacket right-side-out and pulling it on. There were still plenty of tears to be mended, and the ones he did fix were painfully obvious, even in the relative shade of the forest. But with the jacket back on, he became the Masquerain again, trying to scare her off by looking more intimidating than he was.

To Moon’s surprise, he offered her his hand. He didn’t look at her, but he waited patiently.

“I suppose it’s better than going it alone.” He said, to no one in particular. “Lillie’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

_I’m lucky to have a friend like you_. The words went unspoken, but Moon heard what he was trying to say.

She took his hand, and he helped her up.

Together, they left the conservatory, ready to chase a legend.

 

* * *

 


End file.
